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Yahoo has just acquired e-commerce app platform Lexity, a startup founded by former employee Amit Kumar. Lexity says all services will remain running, but it will eventually be renamed with Yahoo branding. This isn’t just another talent deal. The startup, formerly called Vurve, had raised $5.7 million to help merchants build apps for customer acquisition, retention, and monetization.

Lexity’s flagship Lexity Live app would analyze a merchant’s store and provide insights about how to improve sales and other metrics. The company writes that “All Lexity products, services and initiatives will transition seamlessly and get even better, faster and stronger.” This support includes integrations with Shopify, Magento, BigCommerce, and other e-commerce tools, as well as developers building on the Lexity platform. There are also no plans to change Lexity’s pricing model.

AllThingsD reported last week that Yahoo was eying the startup. Terms of the deal weren’t immediately disclosed on this deal, the 20th acquisition since Marissa Mayer became CEO.

The startup explains its progress to date, saying “Four years ago (to the day!) we founded Lexity with the goal of helping small businesses succeed. Since then, we’ve built an amazing set of simple, affordable and effective apps―some our own, some by our developer partners―and made them available for all merchants, including those hosted by our ecommerce platforms partners. Today, we serve tens of thousands of customers across 114 countries.”

Lexity has a detailed FAQ about how the transition will impact its customers.

Unlike its other recent buys, which have mainly been talent deals designed to reinvigorate Yahoo with fresh blood, it will actually continue running Lexity. That means it will have to find an intelligent way to integrate it. That might mean convincing Lexity merchants to buy ads through Yahoo or run their blogs through Tumblr. Either way, Yahoo’s scope gets a little bigger today, and the company gets a bit more complicated for Mayer to run.

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OverviewLexity is the one-stop-shop of Ecommerce services for SMBs.
Lexity Commerce Central is the PaaS cloud platform for Ecommerce, and comes with its own App Store that makes it easy for online retailers to add apps that range from Analytics to Pinterest management, with a single click.
Commerce Central supports millions of merchants hosted on all commerce platforms including Magento, Etsy, Ebay, …

OverviewYahoo is the world's largest start-up, which means that we move fast and always let our users lead the way. Founded in 1994 by two Stanford PhD candidates, we've grown into a company that helps you find what you're looking for on any Internet-connected device. Our employees are rewarded for curiosity and we celebrate explorers, relying on our passionate and transformative talent to do what's right …